


everything in its right place

by lesthowells



Category: Phandom/The Fantastic Foursome (YouTube RPF)
Genre: Established Relationship, Fluff, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-03-18
Updated: 2018-03-18
Packaged: 2019-04-04 07:32:52
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,735
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14015343
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lesthowells/pseuds/lesthowells
Summary: They break apart with a giggle and Dan wants to hold onto this moment, keep it as a vivid in his memory as the last time.





	everything in its right place

There’s snow on ground outside. A rarity for London. They're up early enough for it to be barely untouched, there's only one set of footprints preceding theirs. The perfect purity will be ruined soon enough, when the rush hour commences. It’ll be trodden and turned to a dark mush, the beauty of it is fleeting. They both feel it, the recognition that this is a special day. There’s no particular big reason, celebration or event but the feeling is there unspoken. The feeling that it will be a good day. Dan, at least hopes it will be as they leave their apartment. He hopes this feeling isn’t premature, that it isn’t baseless, mostly he hopes that Phil feels it too. That there was more underneath the initial excitement that the unusual change in weather had brought to their morning. 

Dan was the first awake, despite only lying down and trying to sleep at 3 am. The past few nights had been restless, his brain too wired to let him rest properly. He had written three scripts in 48 hours. He wasn’t particularly happy with any of them but at least he could say he’d been kind of productive. When he checks the clock on the bedside table it reads 6:30 am, they need to be up by 7 o’clock to be at another meeting regarding the upcoming tour at 9 o’clock. Dan feels an initial mild annoyance at missing an extra half an hour of sleep, but it is too awake to make use of the thirty minutes. He grabs his phone from the floor and scrolls through Twitter and then Facebook, neither do anything to soothe the low buzz of noise in his head. He reads a BBC news headline about the snow that has hit London but cannot muster the energy to get out of bed to see for himself yet. Dan feels almost sad for not feeling any kind of excitement or enthusiasm for it. He knows Phil will be though, his love for snowy days is renown. Dan doesn’t quite know why, but he feels strange. It’s not quite a bad feeling but it unnerves him nonetheless. Before he can start to ruminate further he feels Phil stir next to him a few moments later, turning over on his side to look up at Dan.

“What time s-it?” Phil’s voice is groggy from sleep, eyes squinting in the bright light sneaking in despite the curtains.

“Ten to seven.” Dan replies, his throat feels dry as he speaks. Did he drink water before going to bed last night? Dan can’t remember but the faint onset of a headache tells him that be probably didn’t.

Phil groans and threw an arm over his eyes. “You’re awake early.” It wasn’t a question.

Dan hums, still scrolling but not focusing on anything. The white and black was merely a blur in his eyes.  
“Did you get any sleep?” Phil’s voice wasn’t judging, it never was, but the unmistakeable edge of concern makes Dan wish he would be. He still doesn’t know how to handle Phil’s concern. “Yeah a bit. I was just, y’know.” He gestures at nothing, “Writing and stuff.”  
From the corner of his eye he can see Phil nod, closing his eyes again. “How is it going?”

Dan sighs. _How was it?_  It was bad. No not necessarily bad just, not _right_. He wasn't sure what even was right at this point, his brain leading him in circles.  “I don’t know. It’s not-” he cuts off again, it was too early for this conversation.

“It’s too early.” Phil whines, turning over onto his stomach and hiding his face in the pillow.   
Dan agrees silently before breaking the news. “It’s snowing.” he says with a small smile and waits for the reaction. It’s almost immediate.  
“What?” Phil surges up from his refuge under the covers. “It’s snowing?" His already up and out of the bed. "Why didn’t you wake me up before?”

Dan wonders if they'll ever be a more effective wakeup call than this. He can't help but grin as he watches Phil get dressed, with boundless energy before he's even had his first coffee.

 

In fact, Phil’s energy is a force enough to make Dan get out of bed, sometimes it just works like that. Phil’s passion for something or his general mood can alter his own in a good way. They eat breakfast and get ready to their normal routine except it does feel slightly different today, a slight sense of electricity in the air. All the while the snow gets heavier, covering the ground in in a blanket of white. Phil’s enthusiasm is infectious in that Dan feels some of the weight on his chest lifting. The snow does look beautiful, Dan cannot deny, even in the ugliness of London. It’s bitterly still cold, the wind picking up and amplifying the falling flakes of snow. It’s almost blizzard, walking out of their door feels like stepping into a scene from Narnia. Admittedly, walking to the bus stop it’s not fun. Dan feels the ice in the air from the seep through his coat, from inside his shoes his toes begin to hurt. He hopes he isn’t getting frostbite.

They make it to their meeting and back home again within 3 hours, by which time they’re both frozen and shivering. Phil’s nose has gone red from the cold and Dan feels a dull yet painful ache in his limbs. The rush of relief to be inside their apartment again, in the warmth and familiarity is immediate. He’s glad that all the responsibilities of the day are over, his desire to curl up under a blanket on the sofa was all he wanted. But an annoying part of his brain nags at him that he ought to continue working on the script for the video. He was all too aware and being reminded of repeatedly, that he had not uploaded in a month.

While that was nothing out of the ordinary he was annoyed with himself, one of his sort of goals for 2018 was to upload more regularly. But he also wanted the video to be good. The aspiration to evolve and improve his channel and content was a constant for Dan, but even more so now it was a new year, he felt more than ever that it was important to produce honest and meaningful content. The kind of content that reflected him personally, he wanted to be proud of what he produced and have others be proud also. To do all of this, Dan knew that he needed to make sure that the new video was exactly right and everything he had drafted so far was _not_ _right_. He couldn’t settle, the agitation and frustration whirling in the back of his head was building day by day. Three days in a row of writing until the early hours of morning had so far done nothing but make Dan feel further away from where he wanted to be.

 “Food and Netflix?” Phil’s voice pulls Dan out of his thoughts, they were still standing in the hallway, but Phil had already taken off his coat and shoes.

As good as that sounded and as much as he wanted that, Dan couldn’t surpress the feeling that he needed to be making progress. The video wasn’t going to write itself but by spending all his time focused on that, he was also neglecting other things. He had several hundred emails that had built up over the past month that were so far unread. His merch website that was due to be launched in a few weeks that still had some finalisation he needed to organise as well as other things regarding the tour. If he was honest, all of those things could wait a few more days. This video couldn’t, at least that’s what it felt like to Dan. It was important, so important he realised he may be hindering himself with all the pressure he was putting on himself.

Dan hears Phil sigh and wonders if his thoughts are as loud as they seem to be inside his head. He wonders if Phil can hear them too.  “Dan, you need a break from writing.”

He expected the comment really and knew that it was a sensible suggestion, but he still felt the pang retaliation. “I haven’t written anything Phil. I need to get this done so I can film!” his voice betrays his frustration if it wasn’t obvious already. Dan feels the onset of a headache, a combination of tiredness and stress.

“You’ve been writing for three days straight. You’ve barely slept this week. You need to take a break from it, it’ll help.”  
“Three days and all I’ve written is rubbish. I haven’t uploaded a video in a month!”  
“But that’s nothing new is it?” Phil replies with a slight smile but it fades almost immediately upon reading Dan’s expression. “Take a break. Just for a day and come back to it tomorrow. You said yourself you’re not getting anywhere with it so leave it for now. Let’s just enjoy the rest of the day yeah?”

Dan bites his lip, disagreement ready and waiting on his tongue. He wants to, he really wants to just switch off and not worry about anything for a little while. But did he deserve to do that? He doesn’t feel he’s earn that, having not actually done anything.  Phil seems to sense the struggle going on inside Dan’s brain because he holds out a hand. “Please?”

It’s the most simple of requests, Phil’s eyes asking more than his words. Something inside Dan gives in, the knots loosening. He lets out a breath with a small smile. “Alright. You’re ordering the pizza though!”

Phil grins, eyes brightening again. “Deal.”

  

They go outside again a few hours later, only to their shared balcony but it’s far enough. Dan can’t help but be cheeky, gathering a handful of snow in his palm and launching it at Phil as he attempted to take a selfie. His aim is surprisingly accurate, and it hits Phil with near perfect accuracy, he films it himself of course. There’s nothing like a good old-fashioned prank to keep for blackmail purposes or to possibly share with the internet anyway. Phil immediately takes his revenge and Dan feels the breath sucked out of his lungs as a shower of ice collides with his face. He curses profoundly as he hears Phil laughing loudly before he even opens his eyes. The retaliation goes back and forth until Phil grabs Dan by the sleeves of his coat and pulls them both to the ground. He feels the rush in that moment, suddenly taken back nine years ago on a similar snowy day in Manchester. So much had changed since then. They had changed, their lives and the whole world really. But this, this had not changed. This overwhelming all-consuming feeling of love. It fills every part of Dan, from the centre of his chest to the tips of his fingers. The same love that has existed before they had even met even before Phil knew who Dan was. It had grown, bloomed outward; he doesn’t know now where it ended, and he began. This love that was more of him than anything else, the intensity of it was dizzying. 

Phil’s lips are cold when they meet his own, but Dan doesn’t care, he rolls onto his back, pulling Phil with him. The kiss is slow and slightly messy, he feels the warmth from it and Phil’s body weight flood through him. They break apart with a giggle and Dan wants to hold onto this moment, keep it as a vivid in his memory as the last time. They scramble to get back on their feet, slipping and giggling again. Dan feels lightheaded in the most wonderful way, the kind giddy fervour that comes rarely yet so intensely. He smashes his mouth against Phil’s once more, because he looks so beautiful and it’s too much. He sweeps some strands of hair away from Phil’s face and Dan feels that there are no words to articulate his feeling. It might not matter because the expression in Phil’s gaze speaks enough. They know without words, can say without words everything that needed to be said in this moment.

 There’s an attempt to make a snowman which fails comically. After a while they agree they are too cold and that it is far more fun to admire the snow from inside. It’s late afternoon now and the bright skies have been intercepted with the gloom of dark clouds. It doesn’t alter Dan’s mood like it sometimes does. He watches the video of his snowball attack on Phil while the kettle boils. Then asks if he can post it.

The day has been so good, too good really Dan doesn’t know what was in the snow that had the ability to change is mood so quickly and unexpectedly. He’s grateful for days like this, days that are just calm and still and full of the comfort of their domesticity together. For the first time in weeks, his mind is finally quiet. It’s evening now, they ate the remains of the pizza left over from lunch and opened a bottle of wine just because _why not?_ Two glasses are enough to send him into a wonderfully floaty space, the blissful happiness is warmer than any blanket or heater. They’re lying in a tangle limbs on the sofa, turned slightly towards one another. Dan feels his eyes start to get heavy, tiredness setting in his mind and through his body.

“You okay?’ Phil whispers, they're lying close enough that their noses are almost touching. 

“Tired.” Dan replies, holding back a yawn but he smiles anyway, the happiness still fluttering through him. Dan makes a mental note to himself to remember this day when he next wakes up and feels bad. That these days are the best kind, that the inexplicable contentment is real.

“Me too.” Phil’s voice is a soft whisper and Dan feels himself being pulled closer, their arms tightening around each other automatically. 

“Today was a good day.” Dan says, wanting to verbalise some of what he is feeling. He cannot possibly begin to find words any more deeper or articulate than that and thinks that he does not need to. It’s enough because Phil smiles, the kind of smile only Dan sees. “It was a great day. I love snow.”

Dan watches as Phil’s eyes begin to close slightly, the tiredness taking over. “I know.” Dan replies with a smile, he pauses for a moment unsure whether to say what’s on the tip of his tongue.

He feels the arms around him tighten slightly again and takes a breath of confidence. “I’m…happy.” He whispers. Part of him is worried that as soon as the words are in the open that the feeling will vanish. It’s a stupid thing to think and feel but it’s there nonetheless.

He watches as Phil’s’ eyes snap open, then crinkle with the smile that spreads across his face. Dan cannot wonder for too long if he should say anything else because Phil’s lips are on his and all other thoughts are wiped from his mind. This was nothing like their kisses earlier, it’s messier and deeper. Dan feels the heat in his cheeks and the slight cold of Phil’s fingers on his lower back. They break apart at the last moment, needing to draw breath. Dan feels giddy. His heart is racing double time, he can hear and feel the beat of it in and around his head. There's flush to Phil's cheeks that he thinks must match his own. His lips feel tingly and his fingers too. Phil is staring up at him, so beautiful Dan cannot believe. He wants to take a snapshot of his moment to keep and hold forever in his mind.

He laughs softly a second later as Phil pulls him close again, arms curling and their mouths meeting. Slower and softer this time, sleepy happiness sweeping through him. Dan reminds himself as he begins to drift off, that no matter what happens tomorrow or the day after or even next week; he has a future full of days like this. A future full of love and contentment, waiting.

**Author's Note:**

> thank you for reading!
> 
> @lesthowells on tumblr


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